In the photographs of Armin Linke architectural space emphasises the problematic relationship between man and landscape. Linke has created a project to “catalogue the visible”, a sort of archive of human activities, landscapes and cultures that reveals to what degree the anthropisation of the planet influences our psychic perception. The examination of the Alpine landscape initiated by Linke precisely with a series realised for the MAXXI – acknowledged during the 2004 Venice Biennale – confronts the theme of natural and artificial flows involving the entire Alpine ridge. An area of passage and trade since prehistoric times, the territory of the Alps was radically changed by the construction of the first transalpine railways that brought the mountains into contact, and cultural, ecological and economic competition, with the city and the plains. This marked the beginning of the Alpine paradox: the excessive exploitation of an environment that risks destroying what it should instead be protecting.